


First and Last

by fennorians



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dragonborn DLC (Elder Scrolls), Gen, I beat up canon in a back alley and went through its pockets for lore I like, M/M, Miraak Lives (Elder Scrolls), and I plan to write future fics in which they are together, the romance is not a thing YET but the dragonborn uhh definitely has a crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29773623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fennorians/pseuds/fennorians
Summary: At the summit of Apocrypha, the Last Dragonborn meets the First Dragonborn and pities him.
Relationships: Male Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Miraak, if you squint
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	First and Last

**Author's Note:**

> The Dragonborn in this fic, Faolan, is my OC and basically all you need to know about him is:  
> -he's primarily a Thieves' Guild character, he's sort of a combination of a rogue and a ranger  
> -he's part Falmeri, part Altmeri but he grew up in Bruma due to being orphaned very early  
> -he's culturally Nordic  
> -he's best described as a gay Robin Hood
> 
> This fic is somewhat based off the premise of the Miraak - Dragonborn Follower mod by transientfaith on the Nexus

A change seemed to come over Sahrotaar as the words of Faolan’s newest Shout broke over him.

Faolan cringed back against the Word Wall on instinct as if the spidery runes in the language of dragons could protect him if Sahrotaar shook off the effects of his Thu’um and made another lunge at him. He’d barely avoided the first one, the twisted fangs clashing shut scant inches from his torso and the vicious talons nearly taking off half his face. If the Shout failed in bending the dragon to his will...

But Sahrotaar’s wrath seemed to have quieted and he was still before him. He regarded him with one lizard-like eye and his tail lashed across the ground behind him. For a long moment, the pair were silent.

Sahrotaar’s voice rumbled through the air and into the ground itself, making the platform seem to tremble. “Hail,  _ thuri _ .”

“Uh, yeah. That’s me.” Faolan approached with slow steps. He lowered his daggers hesitantly, though he did not sheathe them. Sahrotaar tilted that massive reptilian head and Faolan warily eyed the jagged teeth jutting from his closed mouth. Another flick of the snaking blue-gray tail.

“Your Thu’um has the mastery.” Wicked talons clicked on the ground as Sahrotaar came to meet him, snakelike neck curving to lower his narrow head.

“Thank you...?” Faolan had no idea how to respond to a dragon giving him compliments. Or at least he hoped it was a compliment. The rumbling purr the serpentine beast gave in response sounded almost amused. Faolan just hoped he wasn’t hungry.

“Climb aboard and I will carry you to Miraak.” That ancient voice shook through his bones as the meaning of his words set in. Faolan was suddenly very aware of how nice and solid the ground beneath his feet was. He craned his neck to look up into the musty darkness of Apocrypha, swirling pale green and ink black stretching up miles and miles to a sky ever shrouded by clouds.

Faolan didn’t want to know what lay beyond the veil of off-white smoke.

“Uh, you want me to fly?” He stuttered out. Another of those chuffing purrs. “You have no wings, little one. I want to fly  _ you _ . Let me carry you.”

“Surely there’s some way to climb up. Apocrypha is nothing but towers and stairs.” He gestured vaguely at the lofty wall of latticework and bookshelves he’d climbed down to reach the Word Wall.

“Would you like to swim to the base of the summit and then climb?” Sahrotaar spread his wings, a vast grayish canopy of leathery skin and glinting scales. “Flight is the best path.”

A brief glance at the churning oily seas, stirred with waves and strange erratic motions beneath the glistering surface, was more than enough to put him off the idea of swimming.

“Fine. Just don’t drop me.” Faolan slipped his daggers back into the sheaths hanging at his hips. He knew he was about to regret his decision. Sahrotaar lowered himself close to the ground, almost catlike in his grace, and craned his neck to look at Faolan expectantly.

He hesitated at the dragon’s side. Sahrotaar was built nothing like the horses Faolan had ridden back on Nirn. He was sinuous and scaly and spiked in places, not a broad-backed creature with a clear spot to perch. 

“You will not fall,  _ thuri _ . Climb on.” Sahrotaar urged. Faolan took a breath and braced his gloved palms at the very base of his neck where it joined his powerful shoulders. He vaulted onto his back in a move a good bit more clumsy and scrambling than he would’ve liked, but he managed to seat himself right on the dragon’s shoulders without impaling anything sensitive on the dark blue spiked crests running down Sahrotaar’s neck and back. 

Faolan got a good grip on the base of his neck-crest and held on tight with his legs as though he was spurring a horse into a gallop. “You can go now. I think.”

Sahrotaar stood and extended those great wings like sails reaching into the sky. “You bear the soul of a  _ Dov _ . Now see the world as one.”

Before Faolan could respond, the serpentine dragon had launched himself into the air, pouncing like a big cat - if big cats had wings and didn’t come down after they pounced. A few massive flaps of his wings launched them up off the platform and caught invisible currents of air, and then the ground and the Word Wall dropped away beneath them at a pace so rapid it made Faolan’s heart leap into his throat.

Faolan made a valiant, ultimately doomed effort not to cry out as they rocketed skywards.

He was sure his knuckles were white beneath the leather of his gloves as he clung to Sahrotaar’s crest and prayed he wouldn’t roll off and plummet to his death. Wind whistled around them as they carved a path through empty air and rose high above the lightless sea and ever-shifting maze of bookshelves and pathways. The rush of air caught in Faolan’s ponytail and sent it streaming out behind him, the leather tie barely keeping his hair from being tossed into his face.

Faolan looked down at the sporadic towers and half-finished bridges spanning the waves beneath them. He looked at the swollen clouds hanging above, heavy with rain or some stranger substance. In the distance, several dark whirlpools churned in the sky, letting long tendrils of oily ink and shadow probe down from the sky, lashing about blindly before retreating into the clouds.

He prayed Sahrotaar wouldn’t fly too high.

The world flew by beneath them. Everything looked curiously small from this new vantage point, once-towering pillars of books and latticed gates and jagged islands shrunken to children’s toys. While part of Faolan was terrified to be so high above the ground, kept aloft by nothing but the whims of the dragon he rode and his own grip on that spiked crest, another part of him, something primal and guttural, was roaring in triumph.

Seeing the world spread out below, vulnerable and small and so far beneath him, spoke to an ancient part of his soul that was alight with golden flame. Flying felt like victory, like strength, like fire and light. Thoughts that were and weren’t his own sang through him like the blood in his veins.  _ Kron. Rel. Nii los hein wah kuz.* _

* Conquer. Dominate. It is yours to take.

He ignored the murmur of his dragon-blood with some difficulty. He was not here to tame Apocrypha. He had a singular purpose under that strange green sky.

Wind whipped tears from Faolan’s eyes as Sahrotaar banked to one side, massive wings curved against the air and scaly body twisting beneath him. He squeezed his legs tighter around the base of the dragon’s neck as the shimmering inklike fluid of the sea below seemed to warp beneath them. Looking down wasn’t helping the knot of tension in his chest - or calming that burning urge to  _ conquer _ . He cast his gaze up and ahead towards the summit towering above.

That didn’t ease his tension in the slightest.

Silver-green mist shrouded the peak - did everything here have to be  _ green? -  _ and vague draconic shadows flickered in and out of the swirling tendrils of cloud. Wings and tails and horned heads were cast in silhouette against the roiling fog. Books floated in the air around the haphazard shelves and oily black latticework forming the peak. Several odd arches were visible around the edges of the summit, constructed haphazardly out of some strange material Faolan couldn’t quite discern.

Knowing Hermaeus Mora, it was more books.

Stray pages, tattered and torn and stained, floated through the air around him as he guided Sahrotaar on through the wisps of oily fog reaching out towards them like grasping fingers. They coasted towards the open space at the peak, the very highest point in this alien realm of knowledge and those lost in pursuit of it.

“Beware. Miraak is strong. He knew you would come here.” Sahrotaar’s voice was more felt than heard. Faolan set his jaw. “I know. I’m prepared to do what must be done.” 

The mist parted for them as though welcoming dragon and mortal into its silvery fold. An invitation - or a trap. Faolan suspected the latter.

Nevertheless, they drifted down, those huge wings spread to ease their descent and Faolan clinging on as hard as he could while still keeping his alert gaze on their surroundings. The fog retreated from Sahrotaar like an army in full rout, recoiling from his massive form as he descended upon the peak in a flurry of wingbeats. 

As the dark shrine at the heart of the peak came into full view, so did the man waiting between two arches and the pair of great serpent-dragons perched catlike upon them. Miraak, tattered dark blue robes stirring with the wind kicked up by Sahrotaar’s arrival and one hand resting on the hilt of the sword strapped to his side, was still as a statue between his restless dragons as they snarled and hissed at Faolan and his companion.

Sahrotaar settled down a respectable distance from Miraak, claws scratching at the dark stones of the peak, and folded his wings back. Though Faolan’s instincts screamed at him to launch himself from dragonback and lunge at his foe, he had the wherewithal to wait a moment for the muscles in his legs to unlock - now  _ that _ would’ve been humiliating, going to stand before his foe and crumpling to the ground instead.

He swung down from the sinuous neck. His boots met the stones, pitch black and shot through with streamers of sickly green, with a heavy thud that split the deafening silence hanging over the peak like the clouds churning above, much too close for comfort. The sky was lit from within like a lantern, some odd light source beyond the heavy veil of mist and magic.

Even with the twisted tentacled visage of the dull gold mask hiding Miraak’s real face, Faolan could feel his eyes on him like hot coals, and when he spoke, the very air trembled.

“And so the first Dragonborn meets the last Dragonborn, at the summit of Apocrypha.” 

Faolan’s hands dropped to the hilts of his daggers but he did not draw them. Something was holding him back, some insistent reluctance he’d never known in battle. Maybe this was some unforeseen power woven into Miraak’s voice, but he felt the strangest urge to let him speak.

“No doubt just as Hermaeus Mora intended. He is a fickle master, you know. But now I will be free of him. My time in Apocrypha is over. You are here in your full power, and thus subject to my full power.” A curious mix of flame and lightning sprouted to life in one gloved palm, an orb of flickering electricity and crackling orange flame. 

“Don’t be so sure of yourself. You have yet to face me.” With a ring of metal, Faolan drew his daggers, letting the curved blades glint dully in the faint light beyond the clouds. Miraak prowled forward on feet surprisingly light for a man so tall and broad-framed. Faolan matched his pacing until they were practically circling one another beneath the watchful gazes of three dragons.

Miraak twisted that orb of magic in his palm. “You will die, and with the power of your soul, I will return to Solstheim and be master of my own fate again.” There was derision in his voice, but also...desperation? Defiance? Faolan couldn’t place it. Whatever it was, it made a spark of sympathy flare to life in his chest. 

“I won’t be so easy to kill.” Faolan’s dragon-blood had risen from a murmur to a shout, screaming at him to attack, to fling himself at Miraak with abandon. He forced himself to hold still and wait for his opponent’s move. Miraak was near impossible to read - would he throw his spell? Shout? Move in closer to attack with a blade?

His dark chuckle made Faolan’s knees a little weak. “We shall see.” A breathless pause. “Kruziikrel! Relonikiv! Now!”

The still atmosphere at the summit of Apocrypha was shattered by a storm of fire and lightning and a cyclone that scattered both aside.

Faolan launched himself backwards as his Shout deflected Miraak’s spell. He landed on his feet and charged to one side as a wall of force slammed through where he’d been standing. 

Dimly he was aware of the three dragons circling above, lashing out at each other with teeth and claws honed to a razor's edge and Shouts that made the peak itself tremble. Their shadows darted in and out of the cloying mist as the Dovahkiin charged at one another across the black plaza.

Faolan’s daggers rang against the strange dark blade Miraak carried as he deflected his initial blow. More fire roared to life in his off-hand and Faolan was forced to dodge another blossom of flames. He leapt into the air and sliced down towards Miraak’s shoulders, but he blocked him again. Whatever the midnight-dark sword was made of, it was unyielding.

He changed tactics and swung lower, feinting towards the left but changing direction at the last heartbeat. Sure enough, Miraak guarded the wrong side, and Faolan’s blades bit through ancient fabric and into the flesh beneath. 

To his credit, the first Dragonborn barely reacted to the injury and immediately retaliated with a vicious blow that would’ve decapitated Faolan if he were less light on his feet. An arc of lightning still caught his sword arm as he dodged and he winced but did not retreat. 

“You fight with no honor.” The voice issued from behind the impassive face of his mask. Faolan scoffed. “Honor wins no battles.”

Fire danced around him as Miraak called it into existence and Faolan flipped back to avoid the lashing tongues of flame. He skidded on the stones and let a Shout rip from his throat as he struggled for balance. “ _ Fus ro dah!” _

The current of force caught Miraak square in the chest and sent him hurtling backwards across the plaza. He was halted by one of the arches and crashed to the ground beneath it. Faolan sprinted towards him, hoping he’d stay dazed, but his luck didn’t hold. Miraak rose to meet him and lunged for his chest.

“Your Voice is strong. To feel such power from another mortal...” He sounded as casual as if they were discussing the Thu’um over lunch and not locked in a death battle at the heart of a daedric prince’s realm. Faolan grinned and deflected his blade before counterattacking. “I’m sure you’ll feel it again.”

They chased one another around the mist-shrouded summit, locked in a dance of blade and spell and Shout. Faolan’s dragon-blood sang in his veins. He was alight with inner golden flames, dodging this way and that, rolling beneath a blast of fire and retaliating with a thrown dagger that pierced the thick robes draping Miraak’s form. Crossing blades with another of the dragon-blood made Faolan’s own spirit roar.

It was here, a breath away from victory or death, that Faolan’s soul burned the brightest.

He locked his daggers at the base of Miraak’s blade to force him back and lunged for his neck with a flurry of blows - all turned aside by a rippling blue ward called to life by Miraak’s capable hand. 

The clashing of steel rang out through the fog that formed a backdrop to their battlefield. Miraak was strong, swinging his sword with all the might of his powerful frame, but Faolan was quick and leapt out of the way of the devastating blows. Magicka crackled in the air as Miraak called down a bolt of lightning that split the shadows around them with a blinding flash.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and his teeth were clenched, but Faolan rolled away from the bolt in time and flung himself at Miraak again. They traded blow after blow, Miraak’s ward and Faolan’s guard catching all but a few of them. The minor scratches he’d received stung but all pain faded before the thrill of battle.

All the oxygen seemed to drain from the air as the world erupted around him in a column of flame. The agonizing heat surrounded his body and he knew that without the resistance of a Dragonborn he would’ve been incinerated on the spot. Even with his ability to survive, he wasn’t spared the pain of a burn. He gasped for oxygen and his eyes watered at the awful dryness, but he stepped from the inferno alive and fighting. 

“ _ Fo krah diin _ !” Ice crackled and the temperature dropped as Faolan summoned a cone of winter to tear across the battlefield. Frost spread across Miraak’s curved pauldrons, the burnished surface of his mask, the scale gauntlets ending in sharp claws. Faolan followed the trail of ice, sliding towards Miraak and twisting his body to stab with his full force.

Above them, dragons roared and fire flashed through the clouds, illuminating them from within. Miraak shook off the creeping ice rooting him to the ground. “ _ Mul qah diiv!” _ A lattice of golden and amber light formed over his body, spiraling up into backswept horns, curving into talons and rows of spikes, overlaying the fearsome mien of a draconic snarl atop his mask.

Faolan had seen him do this before, calling down some form of draconic strength to enhance his own power, and though he would never admit it, the sight stirred something in him. How right would it feel, his blood whispered, to have knife-sharp claws that could rend flesh from bone? To be crowned by graceful horns?

All his musing screeched to a halt as the biting scent of ozone filled the air. Faolan braced himself as Miraak sent chains of lightning arcing towards him. The shock sent him sprawling and Miraak wasted no time in bringing his blade down towards his neck as though it were a headsman’s axe.

Faolan rolled clumsily out of the way and rose to his feet, parrying his next blows before countering with viper-swift strikes of his own. They circled and struck and spun beneath the battling dragons and the roiling fog. Battle was a dance in which few partners could match Faolan for longer than a few steps, but Miraak kept with his every stride. It was as exhilarating as it was frightening.

He had finally met his match. Here, amid eldritch knowledge and strange magics, Faolan had met one whose soul shone as bright as his own. He wondered if Miraak’s blood sang to him too, if some part of him murmured and roared in a dragon’s voice.

As he dodged an explosion of fire and lightning and his blades met the swirling runes of a ward, he pitied the fact that Miraak had to die, that he had to snuff out the life of this man that stood fearless against him.

How many centuries had Miraak seen? He wondered at how long Miraak had been trapped here, at the wonders and horrors he’d seen on the Nirn of his time, even as he opened a new cut on one of his arms and received a sword-hilt to the jaw in retribution. 

“Hermaeus Mora is laughing at us, you know.” Miraak sounded almost bitter as he made yet another attempt to cleave Faolan’s head from his shoulders. The rogue threw himself to the ground and rolled up with the point of one dagger aimed at his stomach, the steel sparking as it was turned aside by a great sweep of his sword. The words of power burned in his throat as he shouted once more. “ _ Yol toor shul!” _

Even as the inferno closed in around Miraak, his blade pierced Faolan’s side and dug in deep.

Leather and flesh alike split before the midnight steel. The fresh scent of blood stung Faolan’s nostrils and a vague throbbing pain roared to life in his torso. He wasn’t sure how deep Miraak had cut, if he’d hit anything vital, but he couldn’t check.

Faolan reached for one of the health potions on his belt, but was forced to draw his knife again instead when Miraak emerged from the flames with the air around him alive with magicka. It took all Faolan had to evade the barrage of force projectiles Miraak launched at him. Some grazed his armor, leaving faint scorch marks, and he knew bruises would be blooming on the skin beneath. 

_ Hermaeus Mora is laughing at us. _

He knew the Prince would be watching. How could he not be, when his champion was dueling another Dragonborn at the very heart of his realm? Even as he and Miraak leapt and dodged through another whirlwind duel, Faolan felt that lingering sense of pity as he gazed him. How long had he been trapped here by his Daedric master? How much had he suffered? How many attempts to escape had flickered and died like a candle blown out in the wind?

If Faolan, too, had been trapped here for untold millennia, would he resort to enslaving the minds of an entire island to escape?

They charged through a shallow ring of greasy black liquid surrounding the shrine and Faolan’s shoulder cracked painfully against one of the spindly pillars of the pagoda. Miraak’s free hand glowed with fire as he tried to force Faolan back against the structure but he twisted free and splashed through the pool again.

The easy answer, the comfortable one, was to say no. Of course he would never stoop to such acts. Faolan was a hero, a man who despised slavery -

And that was why he could never endure it himself.

Faolan knew in that deep, honest part of his mind that he would have done absolutely anything to escape if he’d been shut alone inside a realm as soul-warping and isolated as Apocrypha. He was no better than Miraak. His twin Dragonborn had made a difficult choice, a desperate bid for freedom at any cost, and...Faolan could not condemn him for it.

Desiring freedom was not a crime. Faolan could’ve lied to himself and said he would never be like Miraak, but he knew that to be false. For the first time, he looked upon Miraak and saw a man like himself, a man with the soul of a dragon and a raging hunger for freedom, and he felt nothing but pity.

And no matter how this ended, no matter which once-proud Dragonborn’s body crumpled to the ground, no matter whose lifeblood watered the stones at the summit of Apocrypha, Hermaeus Mora would have a champion, and his will would be carried out through their hands. Miraak’s - or Faolan’s.

Daedric Princes loved their games. The only winning move was not to play.

And so Faolan staggered from the effects of Unrelenting Force and leapt backwards away from Miraak’s next blow instead of striking back. Under the wheeling dragons and the whirlpool of cloud and magic and darkness, he held his ground and spoke, heedless of the wound in his side and the smaller cuts and bruises littered across his limbs, his torso, his jaw.

“I’ll help you escape.”

“What?” He couldn’t see his face but the shock in his voice was unmistakable. He faltered in his charge towards Faolan.

“You needed my soul to get back? What if I offer you my power, in tandem with yours? What could you do with my soul that you could not do with the voices of two Dragonborn?” He was talking fast, daggers held limp at his side. He did his best to ignore the spreading pain of his wound and the blood running sticky down his side. 

Miraak tilted his head and those burning eyes were on him again, regarding him through the inscrutable slits of his mask as though he was weighing his offer. “You are correct. If you were to work with me, then...our voices could open the way back to Nirn. Is this some sort of trick?”

“No. I...Miraak, I don’t want to kill you.” Faolan sighed and lowered his daggers to their empty sheaths, though something inside him screamed at him to strike while Miraak was off guard. He hesitated for a split second, wavering between the halves of his nature. 

Mortal compassion conquered draconic bloodlust and he sheathed the daggers with a decisive ring of steel.

“Were I trapped for as long as you have been, I would act as you did to escape. I know how the dragon-blood yearns for freedom, for agency.” He held out one gloved hand. “I would restore those things to you.”

Miraak hesitated just beyond arm’s reach. “If your words are honest...”

“They are. The Dov were not meant to be pawns of a Daedric Prince.” He lifted his chin. “No matter which of us falls here, Hermaeus Mora will have the survivor as a slave to do his bidding. We are toys to him.” The dragons above had broken off their battle and were circling low in a rush of wings. Faolan edged a little closer to Miraak. “We can choose a different path.”

For a moment Miraak wavered, still clutching the hilt of his sword, before sheathing it with a decisive motion. A taloned gauntlet rested in Faolan’s palm, surprisingly gentle, the metal cold even through his leather glove.

“I choose your path. The Woodland Man will not win this day.”

Faolan barely had time to grin in abject relief before Apocrypha itself trembled around them and the voice of its master split the air.

**“Mortal fools.”**

A mass of tentacles and eyes, eyes in all shapes and sizes, with pupils ranging from slits to orbs to hourglasses to shifting morasses of color, materialized from the clouds above them. Tentacles as small as strands of ivy and as large as the dragons that had scattered in fear descended around them in an ever-shifting, waving mass of black and green and bile and colors Faolan couldn’t quite comprehend.

He was maddening to gaze upon in his cloud of churning oily darkness and fluttering runes in languages forgotten and dead and secret. He was the embodiment of knowledge and the hunger for it that had driven so many souls to ruin. The understanding of worlds was caught in that web of writhing tentacles to form an esoteric whole. The sight of him could drive one plunging off the cliffs of insanity.

**“Do you think to escape me? You can hide nothing from me here. One of you...one of you will serve me.”** That dreadful voice, sonorous and unhurried, made Faolan’s very bones ache.

“I have had enough of your games, Mora.” Miraak stood firm and calm before the myriad unblinking eyes of the Prince. The eyes, adrift upon a sea of tentacles and darkness and runes, shifted to regard him and the contempt there would’ve made lesser men fall to their knees.

**“These fantasies of rebellion will not be tolerated.”** The wide eyes shifted to Faolan.  **“You could have served me. You could have had the world. You will know only death.”**

“Shut up and fight.”

That arcane laugh echoed through the poison green mist as the unknowable form of the Prince blinked out of view.  **“Such bravado. Such...unwarranted...bravado.”**

Silhouettes flickered through the mist surrounding them. Strange hungry cries split the heavy quiet within the ring of fog around the battlefield. Chittering shapes began to materialize from the gloom, tentacles and gaping maws and talons and stranger appendages. A series of chitinous clicks rose up somewhere to the left, sounding almost excited.

Faolan uncorked a vial of healing potion and chugged it, flinching a little as his side began to knit back together enough to prevent him from bleeding to death. He discarded the empty glass and drew his daggers, mirroring the Dragon Priest as he readied his own weapons.

The pair fell in back to back, facing down the numerous glowing eyes and hulking shadows in the green-silver fog.

As the first warped creatures descended upon them with ravenous shrieks, twin blazes of fire cut into the horde as twin Voices split the expectant silence laid over the summit.

The singed creatures that had survived the fire lashed out at Faolan and he fell into the familiar rhythm of battle. These beings could not stand before him. The pattern of his slashes and stabs and blocks and dodges was automatic, drummed into him through many battles and even more training sessions. 

He parried claws and beaks and stingers as he leapt this way and that, always keeping his back to Miraak’s. His soul was burning with a vicious satisfaction that grew every time thick black blood soaked his whirling blades or a mutated body crumpled to the ground. He sliced off tentacles and arms alike, interspersing his deadly dance with Shouts of fire or frost or force.

Miraak electrocuted and incinerated the mob in turns. Few got close enough to warrant a death on his blade, and those that did were sprawled on the ground at his feet, beheaded or cloven nearly in two. His Voice joined Faolan’s to fend off the endless tide of horrors Hermaeus Mora had unleashed upon them.

This, to stand at the back of his equal, to cut down foe after foe until the ground ran with their blood, this was right. This was what he had been born to do. The power of his match, his fellow Dragonborn, turned not against him but against their enemies...

A thrill ran through him as more black blood soaked his boots and his knives cut through a seeker. Did Miraak feel it too, the battle-fury quickening his breath and making his heart pound to the beat of a war drum?

Judging by the fervor of his strikes and the way he flung dozens aside like rag dolls with nothing but the power of his Thu’um, he did.

Dimly he knew they would have died many times over had either not been Dragonborn or had they not fought side by side so well, but as it was, the shrieking horde could barely land a blow on either of them. Even as the towering shapes of lurkers lumbered from the mist to join the masses, Faolan was not afraid.

He launched himself from the ground and carved into the torso of the nearest lurker. The fishlike mouth gaped, needle-like teeth ready to sink into him - before a fireball incinerated its head in a burst of heat and ash.

Faolan hit the ground and let his Shout send a wall of wind into the monsters closing in on Miraak, sending them flying and giving him space to repair his flickering ward. He caught a scorpion-like stinger on the flat of his blade and stabbed clean through the monster’s head with his other dagger. There were more to replace every one the Dovahkiin destroyed, but Faolan refused to back down. Exhaustion would not stop him from defying the Prince who had stolen so much from his fellow Dragonborn.

Even so, eventually their attacks began to falter. The horde gained ground, little by little, inching towards the two holding the center of the summit. Faolan grit his teeth and kept carving and slashing at whatever foul things descended upon him, but weakness had begun to set in. His legs felt uncertain beneath him as his rhythm faltered. 

Miraak, too, had slowed. His spells were less frequent and less magnificent, small guttering blasts of flame rather than all-consuming infernos and flickering arcs of lightning rather than mighty bolts. He was forced more and more into close combat as Mora’s minions swarmed them. The swings of his night-dark sword slowed until he was faltering some of his blocks, missing opportunities to cut through an enemy’s guard - much like Faolan himself was.

As talons rent one bracer and slashed his arm, Faolan cried out in mixed pain and anger. Even as he gutted the lurker that had wounded him, he knew that unless something changed the tide of battle fast, they would be -

Wingbeats split through the fog and dark shadows darted through the skies above a heartbeat before the dragons descended upon the summit of Apocrypha in a storm of fire and wrath.

The cleansing inferno incinerated the chittering shapes that surrounded them. Gouts of fire burnt through the mist and made the tower glow. Grasping talons seized the most resilient of the beasts and snatched them up into the air, sending them hurtling into the unknowable depths beneath the peak. 

Faolan was awed and inspired in turns by the three Dov as they circled and wheeled. Flame and lightning bathed the stones and arches, leaving only the area around the Dovahkiin unscatched by the great beasts soaring above. 

The lurker’s paw cleaving towards his head registered only as a faint blur of motion, and even as he turned to parry, he knew it would be too late to--

Blue runes exploded into being between those dagger-claws and him. The talons shattered to pieces on the bright rippling field of the ward and the point of a dark sword erupted from its chest in a fountain of gooey blood.

As the massive creature swayed and fell, Miraak withdrew his weapon and flicked it to send the blood coating the blade flying off in a spray of heavy droplets. Ethereal horns glowed green and orange and gold, spikes of light lined his mortal form with something much older and more profound, and fierce talons curled about the hilt of his sword. Despite the many injuries Faolan had sustained and the exhaustion weighing on him as surely as if he’d been wearing armor made of lead, a tendril of warmth unspooled within him at the sight of such raw power and confidence fully earned.

The dragons were still circling, though the battlefield was now empty of foes. Mounds of burnt, disintegrated, and mutilated corpses lay scattered on the tilestones. Pools of dark blood had spread and merged until a veritable lake of blood had formed around them, littered with severed limbs and crumpled bodies. The amount of carnage was incredible. 

“We need to get out now!” Alarm flooded his tone. He turned and crossed the shallow pool of oily fluid to step up into the shrine. Faolan followed, blood splashing beneath his boots and staining the leather dark. “What’s your plan?”

“The Black Book.” Miraak gestured to the twisted lectern in the center of the small shrine. On it lay a colossal tome bound in some strange dark material that could’ve been shadow itself. Irregular silvery letters from some esoteric language were scrawled across the front. Faolan could’ve sworn they were writhing like living creatures, as if insects were trapped beneath the cover of the tome. His spine crawled with dread at the sight of it. An undeniable energy pulsed from the book in regular beats...like a heart. The heart of Apocrypha.

Faolan glanced out the open archways warily - anything to get his eyes off that horrible book. “What if Mora comes back?”

“Oh, he will return.” Miraak flipped the book open and began scanning through the pages, flipping through them with frantic movements. “I need to find the ritual, the way to open a portal home. The book has instructions on tearing the fabric of the realm asunder long enough for one to pass through.” 

The tower trembled beneath them. Faolan tensed up and readied his daggers. “He’s gonna try to stop us.”

“I know. I need a moment more.” Miraak was still flipping through the pages, stark white and scrawled with text and diagrams that made his head swim to gaze upon. 

The tower shuddered harder this time. Outside the shrine, the fog had begun to roll back down from the clouds, concealing Kyne knew how many monsters in its sickly silver veil. “We don’t have a moment more.”

“I need -” Miraak was cut off by eyes beginning to appear in the mist, wide and unblinking and reflecting a million gruesome deaths. 

“You need a tear in the fabric of the realm, right?” Faolan asked. The cocoon of energy around the book pulsed faster, a frantic heartbeat. Miraak nodded and ran a finger down some index that would’ve given Faolan a migraine to attempt to read.

“Then let’s make one.”

As the mass of eyes and tentacles and shapes Faolan’s mind couldn’t grasp began to take form once more, he took his daggers and split the heart of Apocrypha in two.

The rumble of the tower grew to a roar and the halves of the book shot up through the roof of the shrine to float in the air, surrounded by a thrumming helix of arcane energy. Miraak looked up at the book and then back at Faolan, and he could tell he was gaping at him behind his mask.

The energy core hovered there, rotating and surging with power so strong that Faolan’s teeth were set on edge and the space behind his eyes throbbed, but he gazed into the bands of runes twining around the broken book regardless. He prayed the Shout would work - one he’d learnt what felt like eons ago, from watching the Greybeards use it on High Hrothgar, one he’d never found use for until this moment. He turned to Miraak and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Tell it to open! Shout with me, now!” 

The first Dragonborn nodded his understanding and both turned to the churning nebula of strange shapes and stranger colors in the sky.

“ _ Bex! _ ”

The core split open into a massive rift edged by singing silver light. It was a jagged tear, forced into the fabric of reality by the power of two Voices, the edges worn ragged and struggling to close, but it was there. Between the uneven ribbons of silver, there was the night sky, dark and speckled with stars - a sky Faolan knew well, a sky Miraak had not seen for centuries untold.

Faolan’s elation at seeing the portal open failed as he realized they had no way to get to its height. It was beyond the reach of jumping and there was nothing to affix a rope to. He’d failed in the worst way; the way that was tantalizingly close to success.

And then Sahrotaar landed in a flurry of claws beside them, his tail lashing out behind him. Those reptilian eyes were alight with energy. “Let me carry you!”

Miraak was already vaulting onto Sahrotaar’s back in a practiced move, seating himself right where Faolan had been and extending a golden-scaled gauntlet to his fellow Dragonborn.

Faolan took it without a moment’s hesitation and let himself be pulled onto dragonback. The fog was rolling in around them, and in it were distant blood-frenzied cries that steadily drew closer. Faint shapes darted about in the cloudstuff, hissing and chittering, and a distant roar of rage made Apocrypha shake and the tower beneath them groan in protest. Sahrotaar didn’t stick around to see how things progressed.

As Hermaeus Mora’s shriek of rage at having been defied echoed around them and the portal strained to close, Sahrotaar flew up like an arrow and pierced through the silvery gap.

There was a rush of light and shadow and arcane energies Faolan could not name, and Apocrypha vanished around them.

The first thing Faolan noticed was the cold, clean air filling his lungs and whipping tears from his eyes. It was nothing like the heavy oppressive atmosphere in Apocrypha. The wind never blew there.

The half-built shell of Miraak’s temple dwindled below them. The stone arches and towering walls were small from this height. Even the mountains ringing the site fell away with the rest of the world, their peaks turning from insurmountable to insignificant before his eyes.

Sahrotaar rose and rose on wings thrown wide to catch winds he hadn’t felt in thousands of years. The northern skies were inky black and lit by countless stars, clustered in constellations or flung far and free across the infinity of the sky. Both moons were out in full and floated high above the dark lands below them. Dimly, Faolan could hear the triumphant roars of Kruziikrel and Relonikiv as they erupted from the portal and into the skies of Nirn once more.

Miraak gasped behind him and his grip on Sahrotaar’s crest tightened as they shot upwards without slowing. Some mortal part of Faolan wanted to wither in terror, but the song of his dragon-blood drowned it out. He was laughing instead, laughing at the beautiful view and his own freedom and the weightlessness of his soul and at having defied Hermaeus Mora and lived.

Sahrotaar spread his wings before the moons, casting himself and his riders in a dark silhouette against those bright shapes, before taking off through the night with an exuberance borne of escaping his long captivity.

Miraak clung to Faolan’s waist as though he was a lifeline, muttering under his breath in a language he didn’t recognize, and he only laughed louder. The wind caught in his hair and Miraak’s robes, whipping them out behind them as Sahrotaar sailed through the wispy clouds - real clouds, without a trace of green or unknowable magic or oily fluid in them. The air was clean and so cold it burned to breathe too deep and the faint scent of snow was on the breeze.

Solstheim sprawled below them, all jagged peaks and knife-sharp ridges like a dragon’s spines and trackless pine forests and rocky coastline. The lights from the few settlements on the island’s interior blazed like beacons in the darkness below. The shadows of mountains cut swaths of an even darker shade of night. On the horizon, the ocean roared, waves breaking on the wild shores of Solstheim. 

Faolan’s heart sang and his pulse pounded in his ears. The cold of the night air didn’t bother him, not when a view that could move the stoic to tears was laid out before him. His soul was burning as much as it ever had in combat. 

He threw out his arms in a mimicry of a dragon’s great wings, heedless of Miraak’s cry of alarm and tightened grasp on his waist, and let the rush of island air clean away the musty stench of Apocrypha.

Beneath them, a crystalline lake mirrored the sky. The water glittered with the cold light of the stars, like a piece of the night fallen to earth. Mountains loomed around it in blue and purple and black, painted in a thousand rich shades by the hands of night. The sheer ridges glistened with blankets of snow and reared above the maze of trees shot through with rivers turned to gleaming ribbons of moonlight. 

Sahrotaar banked hard and dove like a falcon that had spotted a mouse. He dropped like a stone, leaving Faolan’s stomach behind at the top of their arc, and tears poured down his face from the sting of the wind. Miraak leaned into the dive, holding Faolan probably closer than he’d meant, and the feel of his strong chest against his back made him feel warm despite the blast of frigid air. 

The tops of the trees reached up towards them like a forest of spears. Snow lay on the ground, melted away in patches, and the green needles of the trees were ruffled by their approach. Apprehension made Faolan’s heart falter. He knew the dragon wouldn’t crash, but the plummet still stole the breath from his lungs.

Sahrotaar pulled from the dive to coast just above the treetops. His tail lashed several of the taller pines as he veered towards the place where the forest dropped down towards the barren coastline. The scent of ash hung heavy in the air as they sailed over a patch of forest in full bloom after being scorched by a forest fire. Spindly orange flowers stood out bright against the charred ground and bare trees.

The land dropped away beneath them as they sailed over the edge of a cliff that had partially collapsed into the ocean. The beach was a scree field covered in tumbled boulders and weather-worn debris from the cliff’s collapse. Some caves were still visible in the imposing gray-white walls of stone, no doubt playing home to plenty of seabirds and perhaps stranger creatures.

The waves roared beneath them and salt spray lashed Faolan’s face as they skimmed the ocean’s dark surface. Foam-capped waves broke on the many rocks rising like towers from the sea or hurled themselves against the beach itself to drench the barnacle-covered boulders. The sea air was fresh and salt and pure in ways Apocrypha could never be.

Faolan turned around, fully prepared to make some witty remark to his unexpected companion, but the words died in his throat.

With a protesting creak of ancient leather straps, Miraak was removing that expressionless twisted mask that hid his features from the world. He unwound the blue cloth around the back of his head and pushed the dull metallic facade of his Dragon Priest mask aside to finally let the wind touch his face once more.

All the beauty of the nighttime ocean and the rugged shores of Solstheim seemed to fade away before the vision of loveliness unveiled to Faolan now.

Miraak was undeniably Atmoran. He had dark skin and almost haughty, regal features. His high cheekbones and broad, strong jaw were framed by unruly dark hair that cascaded to his shoulders. Stubble dusted his chin and jawline. Beneath the straight line of his nose, his bow-curved lips were parted ever so slightly in wonder as he gazed out at a sea of real water, at the trembling reflection of the moons on the dancing waves. 

His eyes, pools of marbled green and gold beneath heavy brows, were decidedly unearthly. Something that had once been human and was now something else entirely - like Miraak himself, he supposed. Faolan was more than a little transfixed.

“What? Have I been warped into one of Mora’s abominations?” Miraak’s brow furrowed as he noticed his staring. That voice, now with a face to put to it, made Faolan’s knees more than a little weak where they were pressed to the dragon’s neck.

“You look fine.” Faolan assured him, and meant it. “Here - look at yourself. In the water.” He gestured at their reflection wavering beneath them, Sahrotaar’s scales glittering in the frosty moonlight as his wings skimmed the sea and Faolan’s own image shining like a snow-ghost in the waves. 

Miraak caught sight of his own face and a tiny smile tugged at the corners of his lips, revealing a pair of honest-to-Kyne fangs. “After all this time, I am myself still.” Relief was written into every line of that beautiful face.

Sea-stacks and outlying islands flew by with the wind singing in their ears as Sahrotaar followed the curve of the coast before leaving it behind in favor of the boundless expanses of sky above.

When an updraft carried them into the star-studded heavens, Faolan was not alone in letting out a gale of laughter.

Sahrotaar banked through columns of puffy white clouds that broke around his wingbeats and parted for his serpentine body. Something within Faolan registered that he was looking  _ down _ at clouds, and he felt as giddy as a child on Saturnalia. The clouds were heavy with the next snowfall and felt clean and cold on his face as they crested a towering wall of white and dove down the sheer face to glide over a break in the clouds.

The snowy forests below glittered as coldly as the trail of the stars forming a pathway across the skies. As he gazed between the wilderness and the untamed sky, a new light caught his attention.

Ribbons of purple and green and blue danced through the night like dragonfire. The blossom of ghostly colors held both him and Miraak rapt, the pair staring out at the lights wavering around them. Sahrotaar’s scales flashed with a rainbow of colors as they passed through one of the rippling columns of light.

Faolan wasn’t sure what caused the mirage of colors to illuminate the skies of the north. His first lover had called them Kyne’s lights when he watched them flicker above the rooftop perch he and Faolan shared, and Faolan supposed that if they were truly a sign from his goddess, then she must be smiling upon him now. The amulet bearing the stark, curving lines of her symbol was warm against his chest despite the bite of frost in the air.

He had made the right decision. In those luminous curtains, the ghosts of light, he saw Kyne’s favor. He saw his own truth, the glow of his dragon’s soul cast free to dance among the stars. Part of him had always been meant to fly.

Now that he was travelling as a Dov would, he wasn’t sure how his frail, wingless mortal body could ever feel like enough again.

“Thank you.” The words were nearly stolen by the wind and he turned to gaze at Miraak, at the dancing colors mirrored in his inhuman eyes.

“Don’t mention it.” He tried to brush it off, but Miraak shook his head. “You risked everything to save me when you did not have to. It would arguably have been saner not to.”

“The logical path doesn’t always give the best results.” A flourishing gesture around them at the stars and clouds and curtains of light. “I got you here. Don’t be too harsh on my methods.” 

Miraak frowned, opened his mouth to say something, and closed it again. “I understand. Just...you have my thanks. I find myself at a loss for how to repay you.”

“I don’t accept repayment.”

As they soared over another bank of clouds and the lights of the Skaal village came into view amid the snow-draped trees, Faolan reluctantly tapped the side of Sahrotaar’s neck. “Bring us down here, would you? There’s some people, ah, awaiting my return.” 

Sahrotaar pulled into another dive. “ _ Mu daal wah got.* _ ” The wind whistled as they plunged towards the earth, the patchwork of white and gray and green coming into sharp focus as the collection of log cabins and low huts drew nearer.

*”We go to the ground.”

Miraak grew tense behind him. “Will they expect you to have slain me?”

“Yes. I’m not going to turn you over to them. Don’t worry.” Faolan let himself get caught up in the dizzying rush of a dive one last time. He knew he wouldn’t be able to look at falcons and their ilk without feeling a twinge of envy after this night.

“What will you say?” Miraak spoke near one pointed ear as the ground reared up to meet them. Faolan turned to him and met his concerned gaze with a reassuring (and maybe a tad self-satisfied) grin.

“That I rescued a prisoner from Apocrypha.”

**Author's Note:**

> Working title: 
> 
> PRESIDENTIAL ALERT: the girls are fightiiiiiing


End file.
